This time, the focus turns on the accusers

WACO, Texas -- Mary Matalin says that "The Obama Nation," the innuendo-filled spawn of her new publishing venture, is not a political book but a "piece of scholarship."

Uh huh. If Jerome Corsi is a scholarly writer, I can diagram the human genome on a matchbook cover.

Scholar? He's closer to an ogre, but not the fearsome kind. In literary terms, he's the troll who hides under the bridge.

Four years ago he co-authored a book that was central to the "swiftboat" effort to question the war record of John Kerry.

Now he's back floating another thin shell of a narrative and rumor. He's backed by the politically driven (Matalin was one of Dick Cheney's top aides), and promoted by the politically driven (Fox News).

Fortunately, unlike when Kerry took the hits -- deemed weak for an inadequate response to the attacks -- this time the focus has turned to the accusers.

On Obama's behalf, Kerry, meanwhile, has set up a Web site, truthfightsback.com, to cofront the accusations.

Last week, challenges on CNN by the watchdog group Media Matters and by interviewer Larry King left Corsi playing the victim of "ad hominem" attacks and unfair accusations.

You mean, like insinuating that Obama is a drugged-out, closet Muslim?

Corsi does his "reporting" for WorldNet Daily. For those not initiated, it is to news what the Unabomber was to the art of letter writing.

Corsi has made statements that would cause any publisher to think twice about him. He's authored such lines as:

"We may get one more Pope, when this senile one dies, but that's probably about it."

And this reference to Islam: "Ragheads are boy-bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together."

Corsi said on CNN that he's apologized for such remarks and that it is unfair to judge him by them.

But of course it is not unfair to judge Obama, say, by comments made by his former pastor or to pluck words from Michelle Obama's college writings to imply that she's a latter-day Stokely Carmichael.

Corsi's joint effort with John O'Neill on "Unfit for Command," which targeted Kerry's war record, was full of attribution to unfit sources.

Kerry won a Bronze Star for turning his boat around in the face of enemy fire and rescuing a fellow soldier. That man is alive to corroborate the story.

But the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- a politically bankrolled organization hiding behind a term of valor -- sought to obscure Kerry's deeds in a swamp of innuendo. What kind of enemy fire? Automatic? Small arms?

Regardless of what was flying through the air, Kerry was there. When and where and if he dodged bullets, he didn't dodge service like numerous individuals who later would hitch rides on fortune to posts where they would send sons and daughters off to wars they would never fight.

Now the fight is to paint Obama as somehow not a true American because of his exotic familial ingredients and influences.

No question, this new smear campaign has a receptive audience. But those political operatives who nod and wink as the effort proceeds are deceiving themselves this time.

The receptive audience is so firmly locked in the "base" of the Republican Party as to be in the basement when it comes to the bloc of voters Obama and McCain are fighting to win.

The voters up for grabs don't care about pre-fab smears and guilt by pseudo association. They care about matters like the economy, health care, wars based on falsehoods and who will populate the Supreme Court.

Corsi is going to sell some books as sure as there's a Fox News. But this time the rest of the news world is not so inclined to give a politically fueled "swiftboater" a free pass. Indeed, it is he who comes under fire this time.